Check out my prison tats, Yo!
by bcbdrums
Summary: "Dr. D., you have some schmutz on your face. Here, let me," she said, licking her gloved thumb and reaching up to rub at the spot. He tried to back away but she held him firmly in place with her other hand on his shoulder. "Ow!" he said as she scrubbed at the spot. It stayed firmly in place. "Stubborn little..." she said, leaning closer. And then her eyes widened and she froze.


_A/N: This is the result of a Tumblr conversation regarding Drakken's 'prison tats' that he mentions in "The Big Job." What are they, how'd he get them, etc. On Tumblr, duck-duck-duck-moose wrote a hilarious and slightly steamy explanation. Go check it out! This is my version, also posted on Tumblr and on AO3. This posting is edited a bit. Improved, in my opinion._

* * *

Shego adjusted the fit of her suit in the mirror and then reached into her duffel bag for her hair brush. She supposed it _was_ time to change after three lairs had turned up empty—she wasn't dropping in casually, like she'd told herself she was. Now she was full-on searching for Drakken.

After another week at the spa and absolutely nothing worthwhile in the classifieds, she supposed it wouldn't hurt to see if he had anything new planned. He was usually off-and-running again with new schemes in less than a week after a failure, and the alien amazon had hit the road seven days ago. That was plenty of time for him to soothe his ego, right?

But with two underwater lairs and the arctic lair turning up empty, now she was beginning to wonder. He hadn't been arrested again, so just where was he?

After fixing her hair, she slipped her gloves on and zipped the duffel bag up tightly. She glanced around carefully, watching for traps yet again as she exited the bathroom of the time-share lair. A suspicious-looking Professor Dementor stood with arms crossed next to the front door.

At least he had let her change there. Now that she had gone through existing lairs, it was time for the destroyed ones. And if those turned up empty too...

"Are you _sure_ you haven't seen him?" she asked, pausing on her way out the door.

Dementor smirked in a way that made her want to retreat, but she didn't give him the satisfaction. "Ve thought you vere finally done vith him."

Shego's only reply was to turn and leave. Her contract with Drakken was none of Dementor's or anyone else's business. So she had decided to take an extended vacation after her last prison break, so what? He'd gotten out eventually, thanks to that alien giantess. He was fine.

Wasn't he?

The closest lair was the one in the Caribbean, though after it had been decimated by that alien's interference she was sure it was gone for good. But since she was running out of places to look, she supposed it deserved a shot.

* * *

She had to steal a boat to get there. Any hover cars were no doubt impounded by the government, or worse—by Global Justice. Those vehicles had been one major advantage of being in Drakken's employ. Having to rely on standard transportation, even when she didn't pay for it, was far less efficient.

As she approached the island she was surprised to look up and see scaffolding surrounding all of the destruction at the top.

He must be there after all.

She used one of the intact secret entrances on the beach and then the stairs to ascend the mountain, up to the point where the destruction made standard passage impossible. She picked her way through the ruins of several floors of the lair until she reached the top.

The red-clad henchmen were everywhere. Some leaned over blueprints and argued about framing, some were in the act of rebuilding the the outer walls, and others were clearing out the rubble. And in the midst of all the red, there was one person in blue.

The henchmen gave her a wide berth as she made her way towards Drakken, but he didn't notice her approach. He was hunched over farther than usual, looking around in the mess on the floor apparently for something specific, and his expression was dark and brooding.

"I thought you'd have finally kissed this place goodbye, Doc?" she greeted.

He jumped, startled by her voice. As soon as he laid eyes on her his expression became so vile that she nearly recoiled. But then his face twisted in pain and he reached behind him to dig the knuckles of one hand into his neck.

"This lair is nostalgic. But yes, I'll need to move out for awhile until the construction is completed. The noise will be too distracting..." he said, resuming his search among the debris on the floor. "Ah!"

He reached down with one hand, using the other to brace himself against a chair that had tipped over, and then lifted up a dirty teddy bear. He slowly straightened and then embraced the bear.

Shego wanted to roll her eyes, but found herself transfixed. Something was different about him.

_'Definitely different,'_ she thought, as he walked with a noticeable limp toward a large crate in the center of the room that had been cleared. One hand alternated between pressing into his mid-back and his neck as he slowly moved toward it, and finally he dropped the stuffed animal inside.

His relief as he leaned against the crate was obvious. Far too obvious, for someone with as much pride as Drakken.

"You, uh...you all right, Dr. D.?" she asked, following him over.

"Do I look all right!?" he snapped, turning toward her with ferocity.

This time she did recoil at the same time as he gasped in pain and reached both hands behind his neck and closed his eyes tightly, searching for relief.

"What...happened?" Shego asked carefully, against her better judgment.

Drakken's eyes opened, but then narrowed on hers. "I suppose you _would_ forget that I was thrown a mile high by an alien and then left for dead. Just like you forgot to break me out of prison..." The last was said in a mumble, but not nearly soft enough that she couldn't hear him.

Shego wanted to comment about his defeat by Kim Possible with the Lil' Diablos. In fact she had several comments about that, most of them related to the tower collapsing on her after she'd been electrocuted. But for some reason his words 'left for dead' hit her hard.

After the alien took off she _had_ just left. She didn't bother to see what had happened to him after the alien had thrown him through the roof. Clearly he hadn't had a soft landing. Of course, she'd been nursing several bruises of her own after the encounter.

But she was a super-human. Drakken was not.

He had gone back to limping around the lair and picking through the mess on the floor, and he looked angrier than she had ever seen him. But if he was in as much pain as he acted, perhaps it was justified.

"Well...I'm here now," she said, approaching him. He looked at her sharply again, his face a mixture of distrust, anger, and God help him—hope. She sighed. "What exactly are you looking for?"

He turned his gaze back to the floor. "My personal belongings, and anything that can be salvaged for future use. Small things go in that crate, big things in that one," he said, pointing. He rubbed his neck again after doing so, craning it backwards with a grimace of pain. "Why are you here, anyway?"

She ignored the question as she reached him, fascinated by his apparent injuries and his iron-will in the face of them. And then she noticed something else.

"Dr. D., you have some schmutz on your face. Right here," she said, pointing at the corner of her own eye.

"Where?" he said, rubbing all over the side of his face. The smudge remained.

"Here, let me," she said, licking her gloved thumb and reaching up to rub at the spot. He tried to back away but she held him firmly in place with her other hand on his shoulder.

"Ow!" he said as she scrubbed at the spot. It stayed firmly in place.

"Stubborn little..." she said, leaning closer. And then her eyes widened and she froze.

It wasn't dirt on his face, but two tiny tattoos in the shape of tear drops. One was all black, and the other was a mere outline.

She stood as if suspended in time, one hand still holding his shoulder and the other hovering just above his jaw line as she stared at him.

"What is it?" he asked.

She tried to swallow the lump in her throat, but found it wouldn't move. "The...tattoos," she said, her voice coming out far more calmly than she had expected.

"Oh, those. Tell me, do they balance out the scar? The henchmen told me yes, but I'm not convinced."

She barely heard him, her heart racing now and the blood thudding heavily in her ears. She knew what tear drop tattoos meant. She'd spent enough time in various prisons to learn all about them, as well as all of the gang symbols and other markings that told an inmate's story.

But in her opinion, tear drop tattoos were the worst of all.

"I regret all of them. Big John—that was his name—"

Shego shuddered and stepped back, clutching her hands together against her chest.

"He said each tattoo would hurt less, but they didn't. So now I have five stupid inks. Isn't that what they call them, 'inks'? But..." he sighed, "I only have myself to blame for four of them. I chose them, after all. Wanted to be hip to the prison crowd since I was going to be in there a long time."

Shego missed his dig against her, still in shock. Frightening memories of the time someone had tried to claim her with a tear drop of their own came back to her. Of course, she had her powers to defend herself. But what did Drakken have? And—she swallowed again and found her mouth dry as she realized—he was in a men-only ward...

She shook her head in revulsion at the images that struck her imagination, of him trying and failing to protect himself, of being forced into who knew how many acts against his will, undoubtedly violent, his very humanity violated. And the final humiliation, being branded on his face so everyone would know.

Drakken was looking at her in confusion, and she realized what her face must look like. She blinked several times and tried to come back to herself. But the horror was so fresh that she found she couldn't. And Drakken... How could he be so nonchalant?

He finally gave up due to her silence and resumed his clean-up. Shego's eyes remained fixed on the two tiny tear drops. No way a big softy like him wasn't affected by it. But maybe he was trying to block it out. It definitely wouldn't help to have her bringing up the memories.

She started picking among the debris herself, noticing now that some of her own belongings were in the mix. But she couldn't bring herself to care about them.

She felt guilty.

She had only been incarcerated for a few months before she had been broken out by Motor Ed. Would it have really killed her to get him out too? She didn't _have_ to go back to work for him afterward.

Of course, by three months it was probably...too late. So it wasn't her fault.

Drakken leaned on a crate and paused to rub his neck again, his expression suggesting he was in agony.

But leaving him for dead after that alien's attack certainly was her fault. The ache in her chest grew to include her stomach, and she suddenly felt compelled to apologize to him.

She pulled out her cell phone instead.

"If your neck hurts that much, you should get a massage. I'll hook you up with the best therapist I know," she said, paging through her contacts.

Drakken looked over at her. There was slightly less suspicion in his eyes.

"Who?"

"Midas. He's at the Mount Olympus spa, where I—" she stopped short, realizing that mentioning her 'vacation' was probably not the best idea.

"Wait, that place in Greece? I don't have time for that! I have to get to Tahiti!"

Shego blinked at the non sequitur, but let it pass with the way he was holding his neck again with both hands and had his jaw set.

"Well...then let me," she said, approaching him again.

"What?" he said, looking almost like his old self for the first time. Him being afraid of her felt normal enough that it made the ache in her chest lessen ever-so-slightly.

"Yeah. What happened to the couch?" stepping behind him and setting her hands on his shoulders.

"It's...um...over there," he pointed to another pile of rubble.

"Let's go," she said, gently pushing him. They reached the place in the far corner of what had been the lab and she began throwing debris off of the couch. "Take your coat off."

"What?" he said nervously, looking even more like himself.

"Yeah, so I can actually get to the sore spots."

He hesitated, and then undid the fastenings of his blue lab coat and took it off, draping it over the back of the sofa.

"Doc. Seriously?" she asked, looking over his attire. Beneath the coat were blue suit pants and a white dress shirt, buttoned up to the collar.

"It fits the mad scientist motif," he argued.

"No, it doesn't," she said, positioning some pillows she'd picked up from the floor. "Just the big nerd motif. Take the shirt off too and then lay down."

"Sh-shirt...?"

"Yeah... Got a hearing problem?"

She settled for the tame insult as opposed to the one that wanted to come out naturally—asking if his injuries from the alien encounter included hearing loss. But he was in so much pain—a week later, she realized—and she still felt guilty about leaving him both after that and now after leaving him in prison. The harsher insults could wait for later.

He lay the shirt over the back of the couch, now sporting a white tank top that was tucked into his suit pants.

"Okay, lay on your front now," she said.

He complied and she realized that he must have had massages before, the way he placed his hands and his head. She also noticed that he must have spent some time in prison working out, considering how lean his frame was and how toned his arms were.

Then she noticed the spiderweb tattoo circling one of his elbows.

She began massaging his shoulders.

The sharp gasp that instantly escaped his lips at her touch made her wonder if he shouldn't be on his way to a doctor instead of Tahiti—whatever that was about—but it would probably end in recapture and more work for her. So, massage it would be.

"Nice spiderweb."

"Thanks. I hate it," he said, his voice muffled by the upholstery.

"I dunno Doc, it makes you look kind of tough. Although the heart doesn't," she said, noticing the red symbol on his bicep on the other arm. It had an arrow going through it, and the word 'Mother.'

"That was the last one I got," he said, shifting so he could speak more easily. "Big John said it was a good start to a sleeve."

Shego felt the lump return to her throat at the mention of Big John, and she looked at the tear drops again. Was he the one who had...?

"What was the first?" she asked quietly.

He shifted again. "Pull my shirt down," he said.

She blinked, wondering if he had really just said that. But she pulled the back of the tank top down until she saw the curved line of text just beneath it.

"_'Only God can judge me?' _ Really, Dr. D.?"

"I was drunk off of their illegal hooch, okay? Never tasted such high alcohol content before..." he muttered.

She resumed the massage, working up to his neck now. Another sharp gasp escaped his lips and she looked at his face in concern, wondering if she was making the pain worse. Her eyes widened as she saw real tears streaking down his cheeks next to the tattoos.

She turned her thumbs in smooth, firm circles over his tight muscles as she watched his face. The ache in her chest returned full force as she understood his vulnerability. For all of the things Drakken was and all the things he wasn't, he still kept a wall up just like she did. His just looked different than most people's, with his 'cocoa moo' and Snowman Hank marathons. But a wall was still a wall.

"Thank you Shego," he said, his voice hoarse.

But he was in pain. His wall was cracked. And she found herself wanting to let hers down just a bit too, if only to meet him halfway. He was forgiving her, after all...wasn't he?

"You said you got five tattoos. Do the...tear drops count as one, or two?"

"One," he answered, opening his eyes so he could meet her gaze. She had shifted to the side to allow him to do so. His expression was uncharacteristically sober. "You...know what they mean?"

She nodded slowly. "Yes. Well, sort of," she said, trying to cover the discomfort she suddenly felt. "Why is one just an outline?"

"An outline just means attempted murder," he said, closing his eyes again.

Shego blinked. _What?_

"And I've been thinking Shego..." he continued, "maybe we should do a little less wanton destruction. People _do_ get hurt. And that won't exactly endear me to them as their future ruler."

Shego was still reeling from the revelation. 'Attempted murder?' Then the other tear drop that was filled in...

"And this reminder in the mirror, every day...that I've killed..." he said, his voice growing sober again. "They're not...really my enemy. I could end up killing someone like me, with such carelessness. The public are all...individuals."

Shego was hanging on every word, making sure she understood his meaning. She looked at the tear drop tattoos again, her eyes wide. The outline meant attempted murder, and the solid black drop just meant...murder.

Relief flooded her until every nerve was tingling and cool, all the way to her toes.

"So you weren't—" she blurted out, but then clamped down on her words.

He opened an eye to peer at her. "Weren't what?"

She took a few breaths to calm down, and found the corners of her lips threatening to turn upwards into a smile. Apparently prison tattoos had multiple meanings.

"Nothing," she said, continuing to ease his tense muscles. "Um...yeah, we can talk about boundaries for violence," she said, trying to put him off of her near-slip.

No way she would ever tell him that she'd thought he'd been raped.

He was still eyeing her, his expression growing suspicious again.

"Um. You said you had five tattoos. What's the fifth?" she asked with a bit too much interest.

Suddenly he began pushing himself off the couch. "The one I regret the most!" he said, his anger back like a whirlwind.

"Hey! Dr. D., stop. You're in pain."

He proved her point by reaching up to his neck again and clenching his teeth.

"Come on, I want to help. You can tell me about your next plan. What's in Tahiti, anyway?"

His anger was back in full force, and he stood up painfully from the couch and gathered up his shirt and lab coat.

"You? Help? I'd laugh if it wouldn't hurt so much," he said, turning and limping toward his room.

Shego watched him go, the dull ache returning to her chest. If he hadn't been...violated the way she'd thought, why was he still so mad?

Maybe they did need to have a talk about boundaries for violence.

* * *

In his room Drakken turned on the still-functioning tap to begin filling the bath tub with hot water. Perhaps he could find some relief there.

He dropped his shirt and lab coat on his rubble-dirtied bed and continued disrobing, watching himself in a cracked mirror as he did so. If he wasn't in so much pain, he might have been pleased with the truly hateful expression on his face. It made him look oh-so-evil.

Who did Shego think she was, coming back as if absolutely nothing had happened? As if their contract and three years meant absolutely nothing?

He supposed, logically, that as villains none of that _should_ mean anything.

But he wanted it to. For once in his miserable life, he didn't want to be betrayed. Was that so much to hope for?

Perhaps he was just less of a villain than she was. After all, technology had proven he was less evil, and now he was thinking of committing fewer violent acts.

He sighed sadly as he pulled off his tank top and approached the mirror to view the two words tattooed boldly over his heart.

_'Shego Rocks.'_

He was one messed up dude.

* * *

_A/N: There are multiple meanings for a tear drop tattoo. A common meaning is that the person was raped. It is also said that the tattoo is placed on the victim by the person who did the assault, as a way of claiming them. Another definition is that each tear represents someone the person murdered. An outline of a tear means attempted murder. As it relates to prisons, apparently the meaning is regional. The murder meaning is more common on the west coast of the US, apparently._

_A third meaning, far kinder, is simply the loss of a loved one._

_And, my neck hurts._ (ᗒᗩᗕ)՞


End file.
